Messages

616

General Radio Discussion / Re: Welcome to 2014...

« on: January 14, 2014, 1713 UTC »

Yeah, lets hope 2014 turns out to be better than 2013 was... and 2013 wasn't that bad a year, DX wise.

But I'm hoping either MW DX season improves into the Spring, or at least SW DX is better mid year.

617

General Radio Discussion / Re: Is this the end of the wire for RadioShack?

« on: January 14, 2014, 1711 UTC »

Yeah, the good ol' DX-160.

How many of us SWL's cut our teeth on that gem (or any other Radio Shack SW radio, for that matter!).

Pop Comm's predecessor Communications World used to have pics of readers with their rigs, and it seemed half of them had a DX-160.

It was my dream radio for years, then I got one Christmas maybe 1977. It was a mainstay for years. Even after I got higher quality radios (FRG-7, DX-440) I still used it on MW and the ham bands (where its selectivity seemed to have an edge, even if it did drift a bit).  Got my only LW DX on it, too, using a loop.

I still use it now and then, on MW.

618

General Radio Discussion / Re: Re-arranging the FM band

« on: January 14, 2014, 0241 UTC »

Don't blame Clear Channel (at least here in the States). Put the blame where it belongs: blame Congress and President Clinton for the Deregulation Act of 1996.  That's what started it all.

I worked in the radio industry back then. I remember all the talk, all the news of radio mergers and buyouts.... it was all over the industry magazines -- it was a regular buying frenzy.  Big radio companies buying out other smaller companies, merging like crazy, then doing their IPO and going public on Wall Street -- individual stations became parts of 'clusters' and with consolidated facilities, and then people were let go. 

When one company bought another company, the new bosses would lay off people to either cut costs outright -- or they would lay off people because they already had people in another cluster that (thanks to computer networking) could handle the extra workload.  Or they already had a division that handled that particular radio service (be it production, voice-tracking, programming, etc.), and they didn't need the redundancy.

It all started about the time of the dot com boom, and had the same kind of greed driving it: get those stock prices up, cut costs, buy another company or merge to try to make the stock look more valuable.

Over the next ten years maybe 50,000 radio personnel lost their jobs.  Those jobs ain't ever coming back.  Of course, de-reg isn't the only reason for the loss of those jobs.  The internet, technology advances, and falling listenership all contributed to it... but deregulation was probably the biggest factor in the consolidation and homogenization of radio in the U.S.

619

General Radio Discussion / Re: Is this the end of the wire for RadioShack?

« on: January 14, 2014, 0202 UTC »

I used to go into Radio Shack all the time back in the 1980's. Then they stopped sending out the catalogs, and then stopped sending the flyers, and then they stopped carrying so many radios, and then they stopped carrying as much home audio stuff, and then they got rid of their CB and Ham stuff.... and became a glorified cell phone store. 

Which I suppose is o.k., except they have a lot more competition now as a cell phone store than they did as a radio / stereo / computer / electronics hobby store.

Sometime in the late 1990's I just quit going there, except to stop in now and then to get some small parts.

The last major purchase I made at a Radio Shack was last year. I got the Radio Shack "PLL Synthesized World Receiver", which is a Sangean ATS-505 in Radio Shack clothing. 

I had read about this radio on the 'net, and even though I didn't really need another radio, the price was cheap enough (about $80), so I decided to buy one and try it out. It works well -- compares well to most of my other digital portables.

My other reason for buying it was more sentimental than the price, I suppose. I had this feeling that it would be the last Radio Shack branded SW radio, ever.

Hopefully, that doesn't turn out to be true, but who knows?

620

Equipment / Re: Kaito Voyager KA500

« on: January 14, 2014, 0143 UTC »

Try adding another ten feet to the wire, and get the radio out of the basement.

Basements aren't the best place for SW reception, unless you have a lead going from your basement to an outdoor antenna..

Same thing with the weather channels. The weather band is VHF, which means the higher the radio is, the better the reception will be. Once again, a basement would not be the best place to try to pull in a weather broadcast.

621

Other / Re: Total Newbie Question

« on: January 14, 2014, 0136 UTC »

Don't knock your radio too much; it's about as sensitive as a DX-398, and works well for the money. Adequate selectivity for SW broadcast.

Excellent selectivity on MW, put it next to a loop and it is a good MW DX machine.

Biggest drawback is sometimes it doesn't handle strong SSB signals well, you have to switch on the attenuator (switch it to 'local') and crank the volume to compensate.

622

Shortwave Broadcast / Re: Radio Rebelde missing from 5025 ??

« on: December 19, 2013, 1822 UTC »

Thanks for the info, GlimmerTwin.  Will have to listen for Progreso a bit earlier in the evening.

623

Shortwave Broadcast / Re: Radio Rebelde missing from 5025 ??

« on: December 17, 2013, 1227 UTC »

I noticed it was missing last night also.  Tuned into 5025 to ID the Rebelde outlet on 1180 khz, which was coming in on top of KOFI (Kalispell, MT). 

Radio Havana was on 5040 but on 5025 there was nothing but static.  I noticed a couple weeks ago 5025 was empty also.  Might be having problems with their transmitters?

Supposedly there is a new R. Progeso outlet on the 60 meter band, but I still have yet to hear it.

624

General Radio Discussion / Re: FCC Proposes AM Radio Changes To Give The Band A Boost

« on: December 14, 2013, 1445 UTC »

I tune the AM band every night, listen to it sometimes during the afternoon, and maybe half of the stations are 'right wing' talk or sports talk.  

Meanwhile, the rest of the band has arguably more variety than you hear on FM -- for example, nearly all the multicultural programming (Mexican, South Asian, Chinese, Russian, Native American, and Korean) is on AM.  Non-right wing, non-sports talk like Coast to Coast, Jim Bohannon / America In The Morning, John Batchelor, Bloomberg Business, Jon Grayson, Ground Zero, etc. -- all on AM.  Niche music formats like Classic Country, Oldies, and Standards -- they're all on AM.  Old Time Radio? you won't hear that on FM around here. Urban oldies? all on AM. There are also US public radio stations on AM.  

The only programming that AM 'lacks' is the same eight or nine monotonous, repetitious FM music formats.  So I don't see lack of diverse programming as the number one problem with AM.  

625

Shortwave Broadcast / Re: LATEST New Frequency Discoveries!

« on: December 09, 2013, 1846 UTC »

I still haven't heard R. Progreso in the lower part of the 60 meter band.  If they're on, my radio isn't -- or vice versa -- apparently.

626

Shortwave Broadcast / Re: Gateway 160 meter net 1860 khz AM 12/8/2013

« on: December 09, 2013, 1844 UTC »

I heard this station once during summer of 2012, and was surprised to hear this broadcast until I looked it up on the internet.  Had a readable signal here in the PNW.

Haven't heard him since, but then, I haven't tuned the 160 m band on Saturday nights since then, either.

627

Shortwave Broadcast / Re: Two catches to America

« on: December 05, 2013, 1740 UTC »

If the signal was unusually strong, they must still be using Costa Rica? 

I read on a Swedish DX site they may soon be yanking the plug on Costa Rica and using the transmitters in Spain instead.  Cost saving measure perhaps.

628

Equipment / Re: Antenna Tuner

« on: November 15, 2013, 0735 UTC »

If your radio is prone to images from strong signals, an antenna tuner will help. I had a single conversion solid state comm receiver that was prone to images below the SW broadcast bands. 

I homebuilt an antenna tuner out of a couple AM radio tuner capacitors and a coil of copper wire wrapped around a large plastic spice bottle, put it between the long wire and the radio. It got rid of the images.

629

General Radio Discussion / Re: The Who to quit stage after 50th anniversary world tour

« on: October 26, 2013, 0146 UTC »

Hope they take it as far as it can go.  As long as they can play, and still have the ability and will to do it, I think it's cool.  Age didn't keep Muddy Waters or B.B. King from touring or playing.

RE: Strats: actually, Pete said that Fenders didn't break as well as the other brands, that they were tough guitars.  He went from SGs to Les Pauls. The ones that broke the easiest were the Rickenbackers, they were very fragile guitars.

630

Shortwave Broadcast / Re: catches from October 22

« on: October 26, 2013, 0136 UTC »

Missed out on that opening. Been concentrating more on AM band DX lately....

Good catches, though, esp. from your part of the country.